Changing Courses
by Trinitas
Summary: "They—started the cutting. And they made everyone watch a demonstration." What happened immediately before Chase's decision to leave seminary. Part of the dæmonverse AU. Can be read alone, but makes more sense if "Principles of Growth" is read also.


**Changing Courses**

Father Bennett is talking—something about original sin and heresy and spiritual correction and manganese-titanium alloys—but the words blur into indistinct sound in Chase's ears. One of his hands clasps Kylie's shoulder like a lifeline, fingers curled into gold fur; the other is clenched into a fist at his side, tightly enough that his nails bite into the flesh of his palm.

Nausea makes his stomach roil: he's going to be sick. This is a certainty. Sometime very soon, he is going to be sick.

More meaningless words echo in the hallway. He and all the other young men here, made to watch the spectacle, are dead silent. The faces to his immediate left and right (he doesn't turn, but a quick glance is enough) are wide-eyed and bloodless.

Chase's gaze is fixed on the bodies in the room—one woman, one dæmon—sedated on steel tables, side-by-side. There was obviously a struggle: the nun's habit is rumpled, and her coif has fallen off, revealing a blaze of red hair. Her dæmon, a tortoiseshell cat, is _strapped down_, and he shudders because he knows the violation that had to be behind that.

He can see beads of blood on Bennett's hands: the bites inflicted in the process are cold comfort.

Finally the proud explanation of this modern new process is over, and the priest dips fingertips into a small amphora of oil, forming the lines of a cross on the unconscious woman's forehead. "Through this holy anointing," he intones, "may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit." Two more crosses, one on each limp hand, and then, "May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up."

Then he picks up a scalpel. The steel blade gleams as he finds the space between their hearts and cuts.

Both woman and dæmon jerk as though shocked.

His witch-sight has mercifully stayed off; he can't see anything but what human eyes can, but it's bad enough. This intercision, this—_desecration_ the priest has performed is worse than anything his devil could have dreamed up.

The crowd around him starts to disperse, but he stands frozen, watches as the priest sets the scalpel down, wipes his hands on the inside cuffs of billowing sleeves. His snake dæmon sits complacent around his shoulders.

"It's hard to watch, I know," Bennett says, looking to him. He can't believe the man actually sounds _compassionate_. "But you must remember, Robert, it was for her own good."

Whatever the priest says next is drowned out by white-hot rage. He feels himself shaking, and for an instant all he can think is how _dare_ this man think he has the right to—and to take _pride_ in it—

Then Kylie's shout in his head—_NO!_—and sharp pain, and he's never quite sure after that whether he was stopped by her voice or her teeth around his wrist, just short of breaking skin.

_No,_ she repeats, more gently this time. _ I know. I know, and Goddess knows he deserves it, but we couldn't get away with that twice._

He breathes, grounds himself, centers, and she lets him go. Nausea redoubles, and he reaches the bathroom near his dormitory with her on his heels, just in time to heave everything he's eaten since yesterday into the toilet. He stays there, retching, until there's nothing to bring up and he feels like he's been turned inside out.

Finally he straightens up, gets to his feet. Flushes the toilet and washes his hands and rinses his mouth, and wets a paper towel to sponge sweat and tears off his face. Then he reaches down for Kylie, and they walk back to the dorm with her flank pressed against the side of his knee and his hand at the base of her neck.

The room's empty when he gets there: presumably the other boys have their own preferred places elsewhere, or else they're in classes or praying or—he doesn't care. He's just grateful there's no one around to see when he sits on his bed with Kylie clutched to him and breaks down in tears, saline running down his face and into her fur.

_Shh-shh-shh,_ she murmurs into their mind. _We're all right, Robert. We're whole, we're safe. We're all right._

But self-comfort isn't enough this time, and the wound of Mum's loss rips open again and bleeds. He wants not to be here; he wants to be five again and safe in her arms and her Circle and the certainty there's nothing his mummy can't fix, no hurt she can't heal.

Time can't turn back, though, and some wishes will never come true. He pulls off the cross hanging around his neck, hard enough that its cord breaks, and drops it into the nightstand drawer, reaching for the bible there. Onionskin pages open to the place marked by a strip of soft black fabric and he takes it out, wrapping it around his hand and closing fingers around it.

A piece cut from one of Mum's dresses had been the safest, most inconspicuous thing of hers to keep.

_Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae__1_…_Mum, Mother, Goddess, help me._ A jumble of words and concepts spinning through his mind: Mum-Mother-Mary, English and Latin, spells and prayers. All he knows is that he has to get _out_ of here: he came too close today to losing control, too close to ending up—

He manages not to think it, but can't suppress a nightmare-flash of them passed out, strapped down and destroyed, and it makes his breath catch. His wrist still aches a little from Kylie's grip, and the marks of her teeth haven't quite faded.

_I'm sorry,_ she says, but he shakes his head.

_Don't be. You did what you had to._

If he hadn't been shocked out of his anger, they'd be worse than dead now. He holds her closer, tightly enough that he feels his own chest constrict, but they're beyond caring. She hums softly, the lilting notes of their childhood lullaby, and after a while his breathing steadies and his heartbeat slows.

Finally sleep comes. It's fitful, but in the waking periods he works out a plan; and in the morning he phones Rowan and musters enthusiasm about the idea of medical school, which he knows is one of his father's dreams for him.

When he hangs up, it's with the promise of a way out and a future. He tells himself he might find medicine is something he'll enjoy, and even if not, 'First, do no harm' is infinitely more acceptable a moral code than what he's seen here. It had been one thing to be a passive cog in the machinery before, but now…no. Now it's too obvious all their talk of a loving god is only an excuse to kill.

He was born a healer. And if he can't do it as his mother did, he'll honor her legacy in human ways.

**END.**

1 The bit of Latin is from a traditional Marian anthem. It translates to, "Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy."


End file.
